Vol. VI No. 1 - Modernist Magazines Project

THE BERMONDSEY BOOK
happening that sent the ripples through his life was flung like the
stone, by a capricious, careless hand. The hand of Chance has lifted
the he-man from his fellows. *
Mark this man. Hear him quietly speaking, not troubling if his
words are heard or not. See him walk into a room filled with folks,
as if he is entering his own private den. Then mark him as a stray
word reaching him from some conversation near at hand, he is transformed
to a thing of fire. He is in his element: his soul is touched,
and if you are studying him, you discover his secret.
Perhaps it is religion that has taken hold of him. Not the halfbaked,
dogmatising, window-dressing, established religion, nor the
fanatical, bible-thumping, soul-converting preaching of the Bush-Baptist,
but the deep, convinced, unalterable knowledge, born of a thousand
signs, or the outcome of one God—revealed, overwhelming vision,
that God is Love.
Thenceforward he is a man apart ; a he-man. Nothing can hurt
or sway him. He is awful, but he is sublime. Then his child dies
and his faith is tested. Sometimes his very sublimity defeats its own
object, for it has taken him so far above mundane affairs, that he could
never have imagined possible the sorrow that now grips him. His fall
is all the more tragic and absolute. His ripples have vanished as if
they had never been.
Mark that man. He is a Physical-culturist. He exercises his muscles
with apparatus and without. He has attained system j perfection. He
walks as if on air and never knows a day's illness—cannot understand
anyone being ill.
Rheumatism? Pshaw! Right living, elimination of acids from
the body by suitable dieting and regular exercising, will soon do away
with all that.
Ansemia, Weakness? Plenty of exercise, green-meat and fruit,
fresh air and cheerfulness. No more Anaemia.
He inspires others with confidence, but he has little desire to do
so. He is concerned about himself for the most part, although he
doesn't know it. Then one day he falls in love. He, who was formerly
scornful of all human triumphs and disasters.
At the mere raising of the eyebrows of his lady-love, he throws
up his exercises and right living, turns night into day and plays havoc
with his body and mind. Were he an ordinary, weak human, inured
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